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Tales from Telluride
As Diane Thomas said, “It is never just one thing that makes something amazing and special, it is all the parts coming together in a successful way.” That is the story of the film “Sallie’s Ashes" which began with a phone call from a dear dying friend who was seeking a group of committed citizens to work on a coal ash campaign.
Our work came to the attention of Cori Yonge who produced an APR/NPR feature on the group efforts. An award-winning Los Angeles producer, Daniel Junge heard the NPR story and contacted Brennan Robideaux, a talented young film maker from Lafayette, Louisiana. And here we are with a world premiere at Telluride Film Festival. Sallie said she wanted to shoot for the moon and her moon rose over Telluride in late August.
We had a huge “Sallie’s Ashes” support team at the Telluride Film Festival. Most of our producer/Director’s family came to help with town travel logistics and to provide a haven for all of us to eat, gather, laugh and talk about the many days of filming in Fairhope. Fairhopers, Diane Thomas and Savan Wilson, felt like honored guests.
We wore our shirts "Ask Me About Coal Ash". The film showed to a full house with huge applause at the end of the film, and again as our names were called to come down for the Q & A; Brennan Robideaux, our director, was delighted with how well everything went; and he and Daniel Junge, and Allison Bohl-Dehart, producers, also felt it was a successful launch of the film with even more opportunities on the way.
We gained a better understanding of how difficult it was to film some parts, respecting Sallie and not wanting to cause her difficulty in the last weeks of her life but also needing to capture the important parts of her story.
The result, an amazing documentary. Checkout www.salliesashes.com and come see the Alabama premiere at the Fairhope Film Festival in November. The film will also be shown several times in our area and throughout Alabama over the next several months.
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